Mina nodded sadly. “But someone discovered the truth. The Masters.”
I looked up sharply, not having heard anything about this from Sanguina. Then again, I hadn’t thought to ask her, more focused on the immediate dangers of Dracula—at least who I thought had been Dracula.
“They helped us organize the Sanguine Council, setting everything up so that we could run the world’s vampires from the shadows. They told us that they would call on us for help one day and that we must be ready to answer with an army, or else they would tell the world the truth about me. About Dracula’s curse passing to a new host. That the heroes of the story had become the villains.”
Damn.
I turned to Jonathan. “And they later offered you something better, didn’t they Jon? You grew to like your fake position as Dracula, and they offered to give you the throne in fact.”
He clamped his lips shut.
Mina narrowed her eyes dangerously. “What?”
I nodded. “True love never dies.”
Since he hadn’t immediately denied it, Mina looked about ready to eat him alive. Her entire arm was now a sickly, mottled gray color. “Why?” she demanded.
“You never wanted the power anyway!” he snapped defensively. “I wasn’t going to kill you, Mina. I love you. But someone did need to start actually leading the Sanguine Council—directly, rather than from the shadows. They need a firm hand. Like mine. One that doesn’t feel guilt. Like you used to be. For better or worse, we are monsters, Mina. It’s time to go back to what you use to be, to start owning the fact before we get rolled over. Case in point,” he muttered, shooting a glare in my direction.
She thought about that in chilled silence for a time. “And what were you going to do about Sanguina? She knows that deep down you are weak. She only tolerates you because I told her to.”
Jonathan’s face darkened at that. “I found fresh blood to bring to the castle. I’d arranged for Roland Haviar—the infamous ex-Shepherd from Kansas City—to come here and complete a quest, absorbing power from some of our local residents. I was going to then sacrifice him and his accumulated power to her to win her favor. Except that bastard demon, Samael, brought me this one instead,” he snapped, pointing at me. “The daughter of the woman who took Sanguina’s eyes!”
He glared at pretty much everyone, looking like he was stomping his feet and shouting it’s not fair!
I kind of understood his position. How had I, of all people, become buddy-buddy with Sanguina? She should have hated me most. I wasn’t about to answer that.
I curled my lip angrily. I knew the amulet thing had been a ruse. He had been trying to fatten me up for Sanguina to eat. Bastard. Since the bully wasn’t strong enough to get the power himself, he had resorted to using others—Roland or me—to bribe the Beast into working with him.
Good thing I’d found an alternative way to confront Sanguina. I wondered if completing his task with the amulets would have even given me my powers back at all.
“I was going to give Sanguina a choice—remain with you as a bored lapdog or to go out and explore the world. Release her from this prison. But it seems she found a new friend.”
Sanguina looked up at that, and then over at me. “You’ll see plenty of the world with me. Don’t worry,” I promised her, already having considered potential plans.
“You’re not even a vampire!” Harker whined. “Everyone she bonds with becomes a vampire so she can feed.”
Part of me smiled, because you could take that as him being upset the new owner of his puppy wasn’t going to feed it as well as he had. But she has to have one can of wet food every night after you brush her fur! She’ll get depressed if you don’t!
But I also wondered about his statement. I was not a vampire, so what did that mean for our future relationship? For Castle Dracula? And should I have felt some sensation when I cut Mina’s bond to Sanguina? Felt our new bond slide into place? Since we had shared life essence already, was it not necessary?
“None of that matters, Jonathan,” Mina muttered. “It is what it is. It’s not like we can deny the truth of it,” Mina snapped, pointing down at Sanguina. “She obviously sees something in Callie, or their bond never would have worked. What I want to know is why you gave her my skeleton?” Mina asked, her eyes flicking towards Xylo.
He frowned at her, probably wondering why he was her skeleton to begin with. Xylo had said he hadn’t ever spoken with her directly.
Jonathan let out a dismissive grunt. “He’s of no use to anyone, no matter what you think. I needed someone to point her in the right direction of her targets or none of it would have mattered. He’s a worthless bag of bones anyway. Utterly incompetent—”
Xylo snarled, his joints and ligaments suddenly crackling and hissing as the embers and sparks flared. “I. HAVE. A. NAME!” he roared, and gave Jonny Harkula the uppercut of all uppercuts, knocking him twelve feet into the air.
Harker shifted into crimson mist too late to avoid the blow, but early enough so that he didn’t hit the ceiling. Mina gawked incredulously and tried to take a step, but her legs gave out and she stumbled to her knees. I glanced down to see that her face was now a pale, corpse-like shade, and her breath was a rattling wheeze.
Jonathan slammed into Xylo—and sailed right through him, forgetting about Xylo’s ability to withstand that type of power.
But Xylo didn’t let him go out the other side. Instead, he somehow trapped him inside his chest cavity.
Even though Harkula was a cloud of crimson mist, he began to scream as Xylo’s bones—not just his joints—flared with embers and sparks that were hot and bright enough for me to take a step back, shielding my eyes.
And the mist began to pop and fizzle, evaporating with a noxious stench of burned meat, unable to escape the prison.
“How does it feel, Master?” Xylo cackled viciously. “To die slowly in a cage where everyone can watch you suffer. Where everyone can laugh at you!”
“Please! Stop! You don’t understand—”
“No!” Xylo interrupted. “You don’t understand. But you will.”
Harkula continued to scream and wail, clawing at Xylo’s ribs from the inside. Xylo set his teeth, grunting and hissing, and I noticed that his ribs were cracking and splitting.
Harker was hurting him. Damaging him. And Xylo didn’t seem to care, as long as he took Dracula down with him.
Without thinking, I reached out and placed my hand on Xylo’s chest. He shuddered, lifting his head to stare at my face from within the depths of his crimson hood. His smoky black eye sockets stared at me, and I watched as his teeth cracked and chipped at the force he was using to keep them clenched—at whatever Jonathan Harker was doing to him.
I closed my eyes and tapped into the Silvers.
I drew them into a single focal point, condensing them into a physical liquid over my hand. And then I pushed it into Xylo.
He gasped and I opened my eyes, still pouring the Silvers into him in hopes it would hold him together long enough for him to complete his vengeance.
I very easily could have demanded he stop hurting Harker so that I could kill the bastard myself and save Xylo’s life.
But…
A man needed to learn that he had what it took to stand up to a bully, to face his demons. Taking this away from him would have taught him—subconsciously—that he wasn’t strong enough to stand up for himself.
That only other people were strong enough to stand up to a bully.
Like asking your parents to yell at so-and-so’s dad because their son had stolen your lunch money and poured milk on your head in the cafeteria.
Regardless that Xylo’s bully was a ridiculously powerful vampire. Even though Harker wasn’t the real Dracula, he had been bitten by the most recent Dracula, and that put him on a power level above and beyond about ninety-nine percent of bloodsuckers.
Xylo needed this.
And I needed my Xylo.
So, like all parents should do, I simply stre
ngthened him, empowered him, figuratively told him he had what it took to make that bully squeal, and that all he needed was a hug from mom and a go get ‘em, tiger attitude.
I did this subconsciously, recalling everything I had used to dominate Sanguina, and letting Xylo know that he had all these same strengths buried deep within him somewhere, even if he hadn’t found them yet.
And then I fused my Silvers into his very bones much like my mother had fused them into my blood. To give him what he needed to fight his own battles. To make his own legend.
It didn’t matter whether or not he remembered who he had been.
I would show him who the fuck he was now.
Because I was adopting this orphan.
Xylo Harker-fucking Penrose was about to make a name for himself.
Veins of Silver suddenly filled in the fissures and cracks that had been threatening to shatter his body and reduce it to bone fragments. He gasped. The veins of Silver raced through his body like the roots of a colossal tree growing in fast-forward. Soon, his teeth, ribs, and skull all showed jagged, erratic lines of Silver where they had begun to break—like he was tattooed with bolts of electricity from skull to toe.
And I watched as Xylo was reborn, a Silver and ivory hybrid, strengthened and reforged in his vaunted Eternal Metal—my life essence.
But I hadn’t expected what happened to his hands. They seemed to absorb the Silvers the most, sucking them up like water poured on hot sand, until they were entirely coated in Silver magic rather than just reinforced by it like the rest of his body.
Like he’d dipped his hands into a basin of Eternal Metal.
And I watched as the black clouds of smoke in his eyes suddenly began to crackle with silver lightning from deep within the shifting black.
His spine straightened as he set his shoulders.
And then he reached inside his ribcage and grabbed the mist in one Silver claw. He ripped it out form his chest and lifted it to his eyes—the crimson mist resembling a wet towel, no longer able to vaporize and escape his grip.
Xylo began to laugh.
Harker’s scream shifted to a chilling, desperate squeal.
And then Xylo fucking electrocuted him from the inside out. Black, acrid smoke billowed out from the wet, red towel that had been Jonathan Harker, until all that was left of the bully who had tormented Xylo was a scorched, smoking, handful of dried, threaded rags.
Xylo dropped them to the ground and they dispersed into a smear of dust. In the stunned silence, I heard a wretched sob. I spun—having forgotten all about Mina—to see a barely conscious, gaunt, balding corpse reaching a frail hand towards Harker’s remains.
Her fingers never reached Harker before she, too, died, leaving Xylo and I alone in the empty Observatory.
Her body also broke down to dust, and the two piles did not touch.
“To dust, all things return,” I murmured.
Sanguina began panting and wagging her bushy tail excitedly—the only other sound in the room.
Xylo was eerily silent, staring down at the two piles of dust with a look of satisfaction. “Fuck you, Harkers. Xylo just fucked you into oblivion.”
Slow clapping drifted to us from the outer hall and we each spun to face the new threat.
Chapter 33
Samael and Lily shuffled in, looking haggard and weary, covered in blood—both their own and that of their victims. Samael had no shirt and was covered in cuts and wounds. His eyes were white, but set against his bloody, muddy face, they seemed to glow.
Lily glistened with blood, leaving crimson claw prints behind her.
And they were laughing, the psychopaths.
“When you ripped that head off—with the spine still attached!” Samael crowed. “Oh, how I’d missed that. No one can debone a werewolf like you, Lily.”
She smiled, supporting his weight. “Practice makes perfect,” she said with a humble shrug.
Right. I cleared my throat, drawing their attention. “Godparents.”
They paused, glancing about the room approvingly. Their eyes locked onto Sanguina at the same time, and their smiles were devilish. “Looks like we have cause to celebrate, Dracula,” Samael said to me, grinning.
I frowned. “I’m not Dracula. I’m not even a vampire.”
Samael shrugged. “Vampirism was a necessary effect so that Sanguina could feed and get the nourishment she required. The nourishment you can obviously provide is more…nutritional?” he said, searching for the right word. “Or else you would have already become a vampire. It’s part of the bond. The trade between you two. You are Dracula, vampire or not.”
I glanced down at Sanguina, considering.
“And Castle Dracula is now yours, of course. Your mother would be so proud, you little conqueror,” Lily said, chuckling.
My heart skipped a beat. “What? All this is mine? A house of monsters?” I demanded, not even remotely excited. I already had Solomon’s Temple, and I hadn’t even begun to explore that one yet. Then again…I looked up sharply. “The Infernal Armory. The Master’s Library. Those…are all mine, now?” I whispered.
Samael nodded, grinning wickedly.
“Why else would your mother have come here? Power, girl. To obtain power,” Lily cooed.
I grimaced, knowing she was right.
“You did it, Callie. You bagged your first Master, and now Roland is safe. I’m glad to see you learned that Mina was the real threat. I always thought Jonathan was the one in power, but Lily caught me up to speed on the true power structures here.” He smiled up at her—their differences in height were almost comical. I wondered if she had a human form, much like Samael could change from this into his demon form.
“I can’t thank you enough, Callie. You brought us back together when everyone else had failed.”
I sighed, waving a hand. “I was just glad to learn that you hadn’t been talking about my mom.”
He grunted. “I had to let you run with that assumption so that Dracula didn’t find out the truth.”
I nodded absently, thinking. Maybe Jonathan would have left battle plans lying about. Something to help me counter the Masters’ plan to take over the world. Or maybe I would find books on the Omegabet. Sanguina could always help me learn it. She’d apparently taught Mina, after all.
I think I would prefer the book version over the lecture from Professor Fox. I glanced down at Sanguina thoughtfully, wondering if she—or even Xylo—was able to leave the property.
“YES.”
Xylo jumped, almost scared back to life by the sudden telepathic shout.
Well. That meant we had time for a much-needed field trip.
Samael looked over at me. “The Masters have a meeting coming up in two months. Since you’re technically Dracula, and Dracula is technically a Master…you are eligible—and likely expected—to attend.”
I blinked at him. “The fuck what?”
“You’re a Master, now. Whether they want you to be or not.”
“The Sanguine Council also needs some guidance from Dracula. You just inherited two companies and an estate. How does royalty feel?” Lily asked.
Rather than worrying about that, I turned to Xylo, shaking my head regretfully. “I wish we could have learned who you really are, Xylo,” I admitted.
Lily cleared her throat pointedly, but Xylo cut her off. “No. I don’t need to know. If that changes, I will ask.” He turned to me, confident Lily wasn’t going to start blabbing. For her part, she studied Xylo acutely, looking very interested. “I already told you. I have a Callie. A friend. What more do I need?”
I smiled, dipping my head gratefully. The Silver coating his arms was chilling—a warning. And he hadn’t had to give up his opposable thumbs to get his Eternal Metal!
I sat down, wondering exactly what I wanted to do next. I snapped my fingers and Sanguina hopped up onto my lap, walking in three full circles before settling down. “Do you have a way to make sure no one is able to enter or exit the property without my expre
ss permission?” I asked the little Beast.
Sanguina yipped softly and I felt a faint thrum to the air before she closed her eyes and went to sleep. I blinked. Okay. That had been less dramatic than I’d expected.
I looked up at Samael. “I think it’s safe for us to remove your barrier now.” He nodded, dry-washing his hands excitedly. He walked over and looked down at the two piles of dust that marked Mina and Jonathan Harker, then murmured something to Xylo. The Silver and ivory marbled skeleton studied him for a few moments before finally pointing at one of the two piles begrudgingly, as if not wanting to give up his prize.
Samael scooped up a pinch of the dust, chuckled, and closed his eyes, muttering under his breath. I felt a dull thump in the air that made my ears pop, and when he opened his fingers, the dust was gone. I glanced up past the telescope to see the sky above was no longer red—well, other than from the Blood Moon. The sky itself no longer had that crimson haze.
I glanced back at him. “Thank you. Now, we have a few things to catch up on, but that can wait until I return. Xylo and I are going on a field trip.”
Samael and Lily shared a considering look, obviously wondering what I had to do that was more important than exploring my new real estate.
Xylo stood behind me. He might have ground the heel of his boot into the pile of dust that had once been Count Harkula, but he had such a good poker face, it was hard to tell.
I turned to Samael and Lily. “This place is still infested with monsters. I need you to whip the castle into shape and free the shifters from the Menagerie.”
“Already did,” they murmured in unison.
I nodded satisfactorily. “Great. Then you can make sure everyone else knows who the new boss is, and that I will address them in a few days.”
They nodded, smiling excitedly at the hope that some of the residents might not take kindly to the news. “It’s like a honeymoon,” Lily clapped delightedly.
Godless: Feathers and Fire Book 7 Page 21